The Worm’s Heart is a complete re-work of The Shins’ critically acclaimed album Heartworms. The album offers new, reworked versions of the original album tracks with the sequence flipped. The fifth studio album from the awesome American indie-band The Shins gets a ‘flipped’ release, the songs have been re-worked and re-created to make the slower, mellow ones punchy and rocky, and the faster ones slowed down and intimate, demonstrating the band’s songwriting ability.

What began as an exercise in songwriting transformed into a commentary on what it means to be a songwriter. After writing the first track for Heartworms (released 10 March 2017), James Mercer decided to recreate each song from scratch. Driven by its malleability, its ability to be foundationally identical, yet aesthetically and sonically utterly new, Mercer continued experimenting until he had two complete albums: one original and one “flipped”.

Mercer’s ability to create two totally divergent albums from the same underlying compositions not only highlights his immense capability as a songwriter, but also functions as a reminder of what it means to be an artist, how an artist acts as both the master and facilitator of his artistic product.